Karpel Tunnel wrote:Sure, but the empiricists are also using rationalism.

I don't think we're on the same page... I'm not talking about being rational or irrationalI'm talking about rationalism as in the epistemology... not a mode of thinking.

And my statement about our situation being more dire was in reference to your proposed solution as a means to bridge the gap between us.I meant to point out that the gap between us is wider than that...

What prismatic wants from me is a rational justification... but neither I nor he (in effect) needs one.Only Rationalists think we need one...

Rationalists trust logic and reason above everything else to tell them what is true and what isn't.Without a benevolent god in our a-priori list of assumptions, we can't trust our senses or any of our intuitions at all... That's gg for reationalism, presuppose a benevolent god or universe or become a skeptic.that's why prismatic talks about god so much.

Empiricists trust their experiences above everything else... but the mental models they rationally construct, however supported by the evidence, are always suspectHence why scientific theories are "theories" and the principle of falsification exists.They view the suggestion about untrustworthy senses as a rational construct and an unfalsifiable one at that and dismiss it.

Skeptics trust nothing... or so they say, but they still don't go galavanting off cliffs, so that's a load of nonsense.

And pragmatists like myself, don't give a damn about what's really true, only about how well it works.

... so how do we bridge these gaps?

There is no escaping logic and rationality. It marks the limits of our human comprehension, so however we model reality, it must be rational for us to comprehend it.There is no escaping experience either, that's HOW we know logic and rationality is the limit of our comprehension... or that anything exists at all.

Even though some people treat it that way, this isn't just some pointless intellectual exercise like pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pinYou cannot be a goal seeking agent without a terrain... and you cannot generate a terrain without an epistemology.We're talking about the literal foundation for how we move through life.. and the fact remains, not a soul here is lacking in conviction regarding the existence of gravity... or the table in front of them.

The onus is on them to square their behavior with what they are professing.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Sure, but the empiricists are also using rationalism.

I don't think we're on the same page... I'm not talking about being rational or irrationalI'm talking about rationalism as in the epistemology... not a mode of thinking.

And my statement about our situation being more dire was in reference to your proposed solution as a means to bridge the gap between us.I meant to point out that the gap between us is wider than that...

What prismatic wants from me is a rational justification... but neither I nor he (in effect) needs one.Only Rationalists think we need one...

Rationalists trust logic and reason above everything else to tell them what is true and what isn't.Without a benevolent god in our a-priori list of assumptions, we can't trust our senses or any of our intuitions at all... That's gg for reationalism, presuppose a benevolent god or universe or become a skeptic.that's why prismatic talks about god so much.

Empiricists trust their experiences above everything else... but the mental models they rationally construct, however supported by the evidence, are always suspectHence why scientific theories are "theories" and the principle of falsification exists.They view the suggestion about untrustworthy senses as a rational construct and an unfalsifiable one at that and dismiss it.

Skeptics trust nothing... or so they say, but they still don't go galavanting off cliffs, so that's a load of nonsense.

And pragmatists like myself, don't give a damn about what's really true, only about how well it works.

... so how do we bridge these gaps?

There is no escaping logic and rationality. It marks the limits of our human comprehension, so however we model reality, it must be rational for us to comprehend it.There is no escaping experience either, that's HOW we know logic and rationality is the limit of our comprehension... or that anything exists at all.

Even though some people treat it that way, this isn't just some pointless intellectual exercise like pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pinYou cannot be a goal seeking agent without a terrain... and you cannot generate a terrain without an epistemology.We're talking about the literal foundation for how we move through life.. and the fact remains, not a soul here is lacking in conviction regarding the existence of gravity... or the table in front of them.

The onus is on them to square their behavior with what they are professing.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Sure, but the empiricists are also using rationalism.

I don't think we're on the same page... I'm not talking about being rational or irrationalI'm talking about rationalism as in the epistemology... not a mode of thinking.

Me too. You cannot function just on empiricism. What do you do when you wake up? Start researching everything. You have to deduce based on memory. And even to do empirical research requires assumptions that one rationalizes out. IOW you have to think that you at any given moment can using deduction and intuition reach correct conclusions, regardless of how much you argue you are an empiricist. And these deductive and intuitive processes have to do with metaphysics, reasoning itself, memory, perception - which includes the whole model of subject, perception, objects - and so on. There are no pure empiricists except maybe things like sea anemoni.

Prismatic567 wrote:If I put a 'table' in front of both of us among a crowd of 100++, yes there is an empirical table as observed.However, within the philosophical perspective, show me the argument and justification there is a real objective 'table' out there.

1. There appears to be a table "out there"... 2. if we act as though there is a table "out there" we won't accidentally bump into it3. It comes and goes from "in here", the table being "out there" solves the mystery of where it comes from and where it goes.4. the table being "out there" is congruent with everything else that happens...

The list goes on and on...

Now provide me with a good reason why we should doubt it... I know we CAN doubt it... meaning we lack omniscience and therefore certainty... But can you give me a good reason why we SHOULD doubt it?

doubt does indeed suggest there is no table... but why should we listen to doubt above all other voices in this case or in any case?

First you need to note there are many perspectives to what-is-reality from the crudest common-sense to the highest philosophical perspectives.

You are merely stuck in the common and conventional sense of reality. In these two perspectives, no normal person will doubt there is no common sense table at all. In these perspectives, there is a table for putting things on and avoid bumping into.

But to advance in knowledge one must be able to shift gears into the higher levels of knowledge.Example, common sense tells us water, ice, steam, clouds are distinctly different to the uninformed. But for a physicist or chemist, these are all the same when they are turned to steam or all to ice, or looked when within a electron microscope.Therefore if someone insist water, ice, steam, clouds are distinctly different, there is room for doubts to discover the higher truths that they are in fact the same from a different perspective.

There was once where physical objects down to the quarks are independently objective from the subject, but then the Wave Collapse Function proved the final object could be a wave or particle depending on the subject's intervention.

Thus one of the greatest asset for one to doubt [a real independent permanent object table] is the opportunity to achieve higher advance knowledge that could optimize one's well being and that of others.

The critical point here is to accept the table is real in one sense while at the same time, it is not real in another sense, i.e. accept p and not-p exists at the same time in different perspectives.

One ultimate is to recognize the self is real in one sense and at the same time an illusion in another sense in different perspectives.This p and not-p will prevent one from clinging to a God to save the only real self [dogmatic belief] to eternal life where that God is accompanied by words and commands to kill and commit relentless evils upon non-believers.

Btw, you still have not demonstrate [against Russell's doubts] to me there is a real independent and permanent objectively real table out there.

Note a can with 10 marbles is different from a can of 100 marbles.A table has X number of atoms and electrons, and this number changes at every micro-second. Thus you cannot claim there is a permanent same objective table out there.

A more obvious would be an objective apple out there on a table.That apple has X number of atoms and electrons.At every nano-seconds, there could be atoms leaving the apple or added to it from the air.With such nano-changes one cannot claim there is a permanently same apple.In time that supposedly permanent objective apple out there would be a rotten apple with X minus 1-billion atoms and later becoming a mere pile of rubbish.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

Ecmandu wrote:As I stated earlier neither can the universe be omnipresent that is why its now called a multiverse

Well the multiverse is omnipresent then [ although its only hypothetical so it might not actually exist ]

One point;Whatever objective statements from Science [in this case Physics] are based on intersubjective agreements within the specific group of sufficient scientists involved.The objective statement of the existence of a multiverse from a group of Physicists [scientists] is thus grounded on an intersubjective consensus, thus fundamentally subjective.

The majority consensus of this group of physicists many total up to only 50 leveraged upon compliance to the Scientific Framework and System of obligatory processes.

To add;undeniably useful, there is nothing great with objective scientific theories.According to Popper POV, scientific theories are at best merely polished conjectures.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

Prismatic567 wrote:According to Popper POV scientific theories are at best merely polished conjectures

They are because of the problem of induction - even though scientific knowledge increases over timeBut when a hypothesis is falsified it is the nearest science gets to what may be called objective truth

I don't think we're on the same page... I'm not talking about being rational or irrationalI'm talking about rationalism as in the epistemology... not a mode of thinking.

Me too. You cannot function just on empiricism. What do you do when you wake up? Start researching everything. You have to deduce based on memory.

But being an empiricist or rationalist doesn't mean you have to do without the other... it's which one you consider to be the "reliable" source of knowledge.bad example but if I remember that I my keys are on the table, yet discover they are actually on the night stand, I'll assume I remembered wrong... not that they are actually on the table regardless of what my senses tell me.

The empiricist checks their reasoning, ontology, intuitions, rationality, memory, etc against the experiential evidence... if that's what you "check" against then you are an empiricist.For rationalists the "check" is the a-priori presuppositions... which is why it's so hard to get anywhere without a benevolent god being presupposed.A benevolent god would make the world such that you could know it and therefore you can trust your intuitions and senses etc... so long as you were rationally minded, of course.

Without that, checking in only tells you that you can't really know anything... this could be a dream, you might be hallucinating, maybe there's a demon messing with your head.It's a straight shot from there to epistemic nihilism and debilitating skepticism.

If you take a microscope to a tree, it no longer looks like a tree. If you standback 40 miles, again, it no longer looks like a tree.

Now, let's talk about the Higgs boson. It's called the god particle because it's the particle that makes mass. But even the Higgs can be split, and even that can be split.

We have infinite regress no matter where we look. Infinite regress that doesn't look anything like what it was split from.

This is important, every object we see is an infinity, except, we never see the entire object, which is why we can process it in the first place, as no mind can count an infinity.

Neither can existence, when existence tries to be itself, infinite, it can't count it, but this process causes motion instead of stasis.

To say that a multiverse is omnipresent is false, it's an infinite number of universes and or realities, and infinity cannot count itself. That why we see something, instead of the nothing of infinity that doesn't allow processing of the entire infinity if counted at once.

Just like there is a sweet spot for objects, there is a sweet spot for all existents and even existence itself, the infinity being finite as motion when it's being itself.

Existence is not a physical thing but a state of being so it cannot be measured like something with dimensions can beThe multiverse is all that exists as a physical thing but can be treated as infinite because it also cannot be measuredWe do not know what the size of our universe is compared to the multiverse as light cannot travel between universesWe know what the size of the observable universe is but nothing else

Mad Man P wrote:But being an empiricist or rationalist doesn't mean you have to do without the other... it's which one you consider to be the "reliable" source of knowledge.

You cannot do science or empirical anything without rationalism.

The empiricist checks their reasoning, ontology, intuitions, rationality, memory, etc against the experiential evidence... if that's what you "check" against then you are an empiricist.

But that's not enough. You have to intuit that it is memory, that there is regularity, that there are rules, that you can trust memory, that things last in time. There is a mass of axioms and deduced truths that one must work with to work with empiricism. There is not pure empiricism.

For rationalists the "check" is the a-priori presuppositions... which is why it's so hard to get anywhere without a benevolent god being presupposed.

But empiricists are not free of a-priori, as mentioned above. And Rationalists will also check empirically, otherwise all you have is thoughts.

You wake up in bed as an empiricist....

you have to have a bunch of assumptions (apriori stuff).

There is no pure empiricism or empiricist. They have to consider certian things knowledge that they did not arrive at empirically.

Mad Man P wrote:The empiricist checks their reasoning, ontology, intuitions, rationality, memory, etc against the experiential evidence... if that's what you "check" against then you are an empiricist.

But that's not enough. You have to intuit that it is memory, that there is regularity, that there are rules, that you can trust memory, that things last in time. There is a mass of axioms and deduced truths that one must work with to work with empiricism.

I can build a machine that will function just by iterative trial and error.I don't have to "program" it to presuppose anything for the process of trial and error to produce the most useful suppositions.All we need... at bottom, is motivation and experience.

Which means we don't have to intuit anything, or hold to any axioms save one... just one.And so it's very convenient that the only axiom we need is the one thing we can be absolutely certain of "there exists qualitative experience" full stop.

surreptitious75 wrote:Existence is not a physical thing but a state of being so it cannot be measured like something with dimensions can beThe multiverse is all that exists as a physical thing but can be treated as infinite because it also cannot be measuredWe do not know what the size of our universe is compared to the multiverse as light cannot travel between universesWe know what the size of the observable universe is but nothing else

A state of being is always a physical thing. You know how in the movies ghostbusters, they have devices that trap the ghosts ... im not even half kidding here, anything that manifests in some way, no matter how seemingly far removed from us, has a body, a limit that can be discerned.

Infinite things cannot be held, once there's an infinite, it fractures, this fracturing is the otherness we see all around.

Light can't travel between multiverse universes? This is news to me.

We dont know the size of the observable universe in standard science, we only know what we can telescope of light, better the telescope, larger the universe. All we're doing is to try to capture light.

Prismatic wrote:Thus one of the greatest asset for one to doubt [a real independent permanent object table] is the opportunity to achieve higher advance knowledge that could optimize one's well being and that of others.

The critical point here is to accept the table is real in one sense while at the same time, it is not real in another sense, i.e. accept p and not-p exists at the same time in different perspectives.

and in addition, to why we need to doubt there is a table

Prismatic wrote:One ultimate is to recognize the self is real in one sense and at the same time an illusion in another sense in different perspectives.This p and not-p will prevent one from clinging to a God to save the only real self [dogmatic belief] to eternal life where that God is accompanied by words and commands to kill and commit relentless evils upon non-believers.

I also stated we have to doubt the table because there is no permanent table we can hinge on:

Prismatic wrote:Note a can with 10 marbles is different from a can of 100 marbles.A table has X number of atoms and electrons, and this number changes at every micro-second. Thus you cannot claim there is a permanent same objective table out there.

A more obvious would be an objective apple out there on a table.That apple has X number of atoms and electrons.At every nano-seconds, there could be atoms leaving the apple or added to it from the air.With such nano-changes one cannot claim there is a permanently same apple.In time that supposedly permanent objective apple out there would be a rotten apple with X minus 1-billion atoms and later becoming a mere pile of rubbish.

I have explained in earlier post we need to understand the many perspectives to reality as it is, thus the need to doubt the certainty of only one perspective;

Prismatic wrote:But to advance in knowledge one must be able to shift gears into the higher levels of knowledge.Example, common sense tells us water, ice, steam, clouds are distinctly different to the uninformed. But for a physicist or chemist, these are all the same when they are turned to steam or all to ice, or looked when within a electron microscope.Therefore if someone insist water, ice, steam, clouds are distinctly different, there is room for doubts to discover the higher truths that they are in fact the same from a different perspective.

Suggest you read my post again.I believe you were too occupied with too many posts thus missed my points. You should not complain based on your own omission.

Last edited by Prismatic567 on Sun Apr 07, 2019 5:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

Mad Man P wrote:I can build a machine that will function just by iterative trial and error.

Well, that's not necessarily knowledge, that behavior. But more important, no you can't. You still have to trust that your senses are registering correctly external reality to compare error with success, and your memories of what has gone before. There are still assumptions all over that.

All we need... at bottom, is motivation and experience.

And assumptions about the repeatability of experience, your memory of it, perception, your ability to evaluate, and more.

Which means we don't have to intuit anything, or hold to any axioms save one... just one.And so it's very convenient that the only axiom we need is the one thing we can be absolutely certain of "there exists qualitative experience" full stop.

And we can remember it with some accuracy, and we can perceive it with some accuracy -plus attendant assumptions about agency and ability to evaluate.

From that well we can draw everything else.

[/quote]No. We would have no reason to get out of bed, or start anything without a mass of assumptions.

WE can build a machine that puts together things and over millions of years might make accidental useful things. But 1) that is not something with knowledge and 2) that's not what we do.

And you need intuition for all your movements, for all your choices of, for example, the angles at which you choose to look at what you made when evaluating it. You need intuition to have the 'I have evaulated it enough and correctly' quale, when you decide it works, or that you can move on to working on part B. And more.

There are no, none, purely empirical ways to accomplish anything. This is a myth. One must include non-rational cognitive processes. Not irrational ones, but non-rational ones. One must assume a lot of things.

Prismatic567 wrote:According to Popper POV scientific theories are at best merely polished conjectures

They are because of the problem of induction - even though scientific knowledge increases over timeBut when a hypothesis is falsified it is the nearest science gets to what may be called objective truth

??You mean falsifiable?

Actually the critical criteria in the following order;

1. A sound Framework and System [scientific method, peer pressure] with high confidence levels.2. intersubjective consensus among peers3. repeatable testing and confirmation of results4. Confidence of the majority5. falsifiability6. humility of no 100% certainty7. Others

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

surreptitious75 wrote:Existence is not a physical thing but a state of being so it cannot be measured like something with dimensions can beThe multiverse is all that exists as a physical thing but can be treated as infinite because it also cannot be measuredWe do not know what the size of our universe is compared to the multiverse as light cannot travel between universesWe know what the size of the observable universe is but nothing else

Existence is not exactly a state of being.

Exist [essence of existence] is merely a copula between a subject and its predicate.A thing [subject] exists as a state of being as represented by its predicate.The term 'exist' [and existence] is not the critical element here.

What is critical is the thing and its state of being.E.g. one cannot state 'an apple exists [period].'An apple [subject/object] exists as a fruit within an environment [state of being].Therefore if you want to demonstrate the existence of the apple, then one must produce evidence and justification of its predicate, i.e. its qualities, properties, concepts, evidences etc.

Ecmandu,

'Existence' [essence exists] is a copped out word for what is reality.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

for objects, there is a sweet spot for all existents and even existence itself, the infinity being finite as motion when it's being itself.

It is there an absolute sweet spot for all living things [subjects]?There is no such absolute sweet spot.

What is a sweet spot is subjected [thus subjective] to;

1. the individual, and the average, the majority of a living species.

So what is a sweet spot is possibly objective to a majority or the average but it is ultimately subjects dependent, thus subjectivity.

Yes. There is an average, and we all fall within that average.

It's like a cup of coffee.

People often tell me that there is no such thing as perfection... however, when I order coffee, I always ask them to fill it 3/4ths full. I've never had that same pour twice, but, it's been perfect every time. The function is don't fill it so that I burn my hands by walking with it, and don't rip me off. It's never been exactly 3/4ths full, but it's still perfect every time.

It's in this way, that people are objectively perfect as an average in their slice of the perceptual acuity pie.

Mad Man P wrote:I can build a machine that will function just by iterative trial and error.

Well, that's not necessarily knowledge, that behavior. But more important, no you can't. You still have to trust that your senses are registering correctly external reality to compare error with success, and your memories of what has gone before. There are still assumptions all over that.

C'mon dude, you were so close.You got it right the first time... there is in fact no "knowledge" claimed in that, it's just a process... or behavior as you put it.And I don't have to "trust" my senses or memory or even assume that there IS an external reality in order to behave that way.

You keep confusing the suppositions we make every day with presuppositions... those two concepts are very different.What I'm arguing is that we can do without any a-priori assumptions or presuppositions.I don't have to PRE-suppose I can trust my memory... I can just suppose it normally then test it. As a consequence I now suppose my memory is mostly accurate but also quite capable of being wrong, my senses can mostly be trusted, except when I'm less than sober, then they get a bit dicey... if my senses or memory being trustworthy were PRE-suppositions, I'd be incapable of coming to the conclusion that they sometimes cannot be trusted.

I'm not saying we can do without suppositions, which is what you seem to think... I'm saying we can do without PREsuppositions, because we have a process by which we can generate and improve our suppositions.And all it takes for that process to work is qualitative experience...

Mad Man P wrote:I can build a machine that will function just by iterative trial and error.

Well, that's not necessarily knowledge, that behavior. But more important, no you can't. You still have to trust that your senses are registering correctly external reality to compare error with success, and your memories of what has gone before. There are still assumptions all over that.

C'mon dude, you were so close.You got it right the first time... there is in fact no "knowledge" claimed in that, it's just a process... or behavior as you put it.And I don't have to "trust" my senses or memory or even assume that there IS an external reality in order to behave that way.

I haven't changed my stance. We are not like those machines. We have inbuilt heuristics.

You keep confusing the suppositions we make every day with presuppositions... those two concepts are very different.What I'm arguing is that we can do without any a-priori assumptions or presuppositions.I don't have to PRE-suppose I can trust my memory... I can just suppose it normally then test it. As a consequence I now suppose my memory is mostly accurate but also quite capable of being wrong, my senses can mostly be trusted, except when I'm less than sober, then they get a bit dicey... if my senses or memory being trustworthy were PRE-suppositions, I'd be incapable of coming to the conclusion that they sometimes cannot be trusted.

you would be incapable if I was arguing we cannot learn empircally. I know we can. My position is not that we only learn via non-empirical methods. I don' know what you mean by 'suppose it normally'. We don't test memory as a whole and children tend not to test it at all. Though they all notice, or most anyway, that sometimes it misses the mark. But that is different from challenging the axiom that memory is about what happened before and one can learn from this. I don't need to go recheck everything. I can build today when I wake up on what I learned before today. Etc.

I'm not saying we can do without suppositions, which is what you seem to think... I'm saying we can do without PREsuppositions, because we have a process by which we can generate and improve our suppositions.

We don't do without them. And I do not put citation marks around my assumptions all the time. Once in a while when waxing philosophical I, unlike most people, may question them. But that is clearly challenging axioms.

I did not miss your reply... You seem to have lost the plot on our conversation.. allow me to demonstrate:

Prismatic567 wrote:I recognized and agree with empirical, scientific, legal, moral, sports, etc. objectivity, but such objectivity is only valid as conditioned and subjected to their defined Framework and System, rules and criteria.Repeat, why you are so narrow and closed-minded and confined to pure objectivity only is due to a psychological compulsion via a desperate existential crisis.

Mad Man P wrote:Skepticism is best used as a tool, not a rule... it allows us to compare established ideas with new ones and pick the better.You have as of yet not produced any "better" ideas... and even if you did, it would not be best received with an open-mind, but with scrutiny and careful examination.

Prismatic567 wrote:If I put a 'table' in front of both of us among a crowd of 100++, yes there is an empirical table as observed.However, within the philosophical perspective, show me the argument and justification there is a real objective 'table' out there.

Prismatic567 wrote:Thus one of the greatest asset for one to doubt [a real independent permanent object table] is the opportunity to achieve higher advance knowledge that could optimize one's well being and that of others.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:We are not like those machines. We have inbuilt heuristics.

Agreed...

As a consequence I now suppose my memory is mostly accurate but also quite capable of being wrong, my senses can mostly be trusted, except when I'm less than sober, then they get a bit dicey... if my senses or memory being trustworthy were PRE-suppositions, I'd be incapable of coming to the conclusion that they sometimes cannot be trusted.

you would be incapable if I was arguing we cannot learn empirically.

I'm not arguing against YOU... I don't think I even disagree with you. I'm arguing against epistemic rationalism, I'm pointing out that we check our suppositions against empirical evidence and if there is conflict, the empirical evidence wins.... that's all it means to be an empiricists.

Yes, wins the battle, but not necessarily the war. Empiricism doesn't obliterate basic assumptions, they merely put them on hold. The most elemental support for this lays in the purpose of retaining of conflict, for delayed resolution, while waiting for the situation to change.